[Books] The Most Difficult/Boring Book You Have Read

[Bhodi]

Anything by Dickens, but I think Bleakhouse takes the cake. What a steaming pile.

[Deleted]

Fifty Shades of Grey.

... Don't ask.

[Summer]

I've tried to read James Joyce's Ulysses about 3 times now. Just can't seem to do it.

Of the books I've finished, the most tedious ones would be the Bible, Tolkien's "history" stuff, some stuff by Tolstoy or Dostoyevski and errh, what else. Robert Jordan at his worst :P

[Mormolyce]

Most difficult but rewarding or most difficult because it basically sucked?

Probably either Paradise Lost or The Cat Who Walked Through Walls. Paradise Lost was just so tedious and the story itself was incredibly slow and uninteresting, only bothered to finish it out of some weird literary stubbornness. The Cat Who Walked Through Walls was just the worst book I've ever read.

I can't think of any books I found really hard to read and yet got something rewarding from. Two Towers lags in the middle and yet is still a good book if that counts. I seem to recall abandoning Wuthering Heights halfway through (and it's tiny!) in highschool but I was so much younger then.

The Similarian.

Ooh yeah that was hard going.

[Rastas]

Well, there's this one book, called Alastalon Salissa, that is probably the most boring book ever written in Finnish. I started it five years ago, and I'm still only around page 50 or so. Basically, it's a story that spans a 6-hour time frame in 800 pages. The story is -believe it or not - about whether a group of men want to invest in their friend's new boat in the 19th century little Finnish town of Kustavi. There's a 70-page long bit about a guy walking to a mantelpiece to get his pipe... Surprisingly it has never been translated.

I was pretty confident in being able to finish it off in a couple of days. Yeah right.

[Deleted]

Worst book? Twilight. I am ashamed to have read the first book. But I stopped there.

Me too. That was probably the most boring I've ever read. To my defense, I was in the hospital and watching other sick people wasn't a good alternative.
The hardest book I've read is probably "Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco. It's also one of my favourite books ever.

[Sarolyn]

In all honesty, LotR: Fellowship of the Ring. I've read The Hobbit multiple times and have read Two Towers and Return of the King once each, and never had an issue. With Fellowship though...idk, it was just painful for me.

I've never bothered trying The Similarian, but I have heard from multiple people, avid readers and Tolkien fans, that it is hard to get through.

[kynthrus]

Moby Dick is too long for the all of nothing that happens. Also Dante's Inferno was fairly difficult to read.

[Deleted]

Foucault's Pendulum by Umbeto Eco was a huge pain in the ass to read, I don't think I've actually even finished it yet. Its just been lying there collecting dust. Another one is the Infinite Jest. It was pretty lengthy and difficult at times but it's totally worth it, especially if you get past the first 200-300 pages.

[Gallahadd]

I've tried to read James Joyce's Ulysses about 3 times now. Just can't seem to do it.

Oh god, I was going to say something else, but yeah I'd forgotten about Ulysses, dear god James Joyce HATES people who read books and wants to punish them by making them read his books fucking hell man... that book..... DAMN.

Back to what I was going to say: The Tale of Genji. Some historians consider this the first novel EVER written.... And man We've come a long fucking way. What a steam pile of evil that book is.. Even as a real super geek when it comes to Japanese History I could not stand this book. The writing is understandably stilted, it's hundreds of years old, but it's just..... I would almost go as far as to call it offensive, the main character Genji, is hands down the worst character I've read in a book, and I've read Eregon. I've had it about 5 years now and I'm still not finished, every time I try to read some, I pick it up, read about a page, sigh heavily and put it back down.

Oh and Decay of an Angel, by Mishima Yukio, the first three in the series were pretty good, but by the time he got round to writing this one he'd basically gone batshit crazy and hated the changes happening in Japan. This REALLY comes across in the book, which is basically about an older guy (representing "old" Japan) who adopts a brash young guy ("New" Japan) and the young guy spends the whole book being a fucking dick to the old guy (Can you see what he did there?). After he finished this book, Mishima Yukio killed himself, after getting about 1/2 way through I wanted to do the same.

[Deleted]

The Hobbit. Started a few years ago,and got a headache from reading lol. And i can read a 500 page book in one day if i like it.

[WarpKnight]

Gonna agree with what others have already said here and say anything Dickens.

Tried reading Oliver Twist, got about 25% of the way through, then just had to stop and lie down for a few days.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Gonna agree with what others have already said here and say anything Dickens.

Tried reading Oliver Twist, got about 25% of the way through, then just had to stop and lie down for a few days.

Dickens is one of the greatest novelists that has ever lived.

1984. 1 page of stuff happening, the rest of the book is political discourse.

[Shinzai]

Everything by Jane Austen. I despise the style of her writing and find it all incredibly tedious/monotonous to read.

And I'm well aware of how well loved Pride and Sense both are, but I really don't like them. Grey from Fifty Shades of Grey also reminds me of Darcy.

[Ausr]

Starship Troopers. That really has to be the most boring, uninteresting book I have ever had displeasure of holding. I read the whole thing but god damn, it was so bad. Luckily I only spent $2 on it on a book store closing or I think I would've returned it.

[Adam Jensen]

http://www.amazon.com/Crossroads-Twi.../dp/0812571339

Crossroads of Twilight, book 10 of the Wheel of Time.

I *love* this series, but I could not STAND this fucking book. It was like a fucking roadblock. This one ends with most of the characters in the same situations as they were at in book 9.

This right here is from a review on Amazon and totally sums up how I feel about this book:

Part of what really makes Mr. Jordan's worlds so unique are the wonderful characters which populate them. I like nothing more than to scratch my head in befuddlement as yet another Aes Sedai is reintroduced into the plot whom I can no longer recall. It gives me an excuse to page to the back of the book and open up the 'Robert Jordan Appendix of Useless and Irrelevent Characters' which is always such a joy. I've created my own drinking game based on this called, [...]
For anyone who wants to play along the rules are simple:

1.) Is the character you're looking up totally irrelevent? Take a drink.
2.) Do you have reason to suspect said character will remain totally irrelevent? Take a drink.
3.) Does the character twitch her shawl? Take two drinks.
4.) Is she looking "cross-eyed" at someone? Take a drink.
5.) Do you know the exact design of the embroidery on the fringe of her shawl? Of course you do - take a drink. For your own sanity, consider taking another.

But as I wrote that, I just remembered my ABSOLUTELY most HATED book.

Absolom Absolom by Faulkner. JESUS CHRIST that book is ONE LONG run on sentence after run on sentence. Fuck, the first 30 pages was literally ONE FUCKING SENTENCE. It was like trying to punch through a brick wall.

That's the only book in AP English that I said "fuck this" and used Cliffnotes.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Everything by Jane Austen. I despise the style of her writing and find it all incredibly tedious/monotonous to read.

And I'm well aware of how well loved Pride and Sense both are, but I really don't like them. Grey from Fifty Shades of Grey also reminds me of Darcy.

Pride and Prejudice is kinda funny though.

[Palmatum]

Don't know about difficult, probably a history book in Chinese while I was still learning.

As for boring, probably the complete works of Shakespeare.

[arel00]

Most difficult to keep reading was probably The Man in the High Castle (Philip Dick), as much as I LOVE that man's writing, it was extremely slow and hard to finish.

I think The Unbearable Lightness of Being also deserves a mention. It's not hard to read as far as writing goes but, imho, it requires strong concentration to really follow every feeling that's been poured into it. I really enjoyed it, but it need focus.

[Toxigen]

See, I loved 1984.

I read Crime and Punishment as a junior in high school. At the time, I trudged through it with all the Russian names and and references. I picked it up a couple of years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.